A special thanks to my friend CJ for being my sounding board for this chapter.
Chapter 9: No Little Girl Lost
January 18th 1998
Jim pushes a little piece of hair behind Kate's ear. He then kisses her forehead and whispers, "I'm going to go get some food, okay?"
She doesn't say anything and keeps her eyes shut even though she isn't asleep. If she's awake she'll be expected to talk, to accept. As of right now, none seem that appealing. No one would expect her to be okay, but functioning as a feeling person able to process her life would be expected. She wants to run, leave here and change everything about herself and start over, but right now she can't, so she pretends to sleep. As a result her father leaves her alone in her hospital room, knowing that she may not actually be asleep.
She doesn't know how long it has been since he left when a nurse comes in. She knocks on the door gently. Surely she does this out of training, to not be obnoxiously loud to tired new mothers. The thought makes her squeeze her eyes tighter, but she takes a shallow breath, then slowly turns to look at her, pushing herself to sit up. For some reason it surprises her that the nurse has also brought along a rolling bassinet with a tiny baby inside.
"Do you want to hold her?" The nurse asks cheerfully.
Kate slowly shakes her head no and looks down.
Though the nurse seems to understand the situation, she is young and has training that tells her to differ from her better judgment. "Ok…She's a sleep anyways. I'll just leave her here and then if you feel up to it you can hold her then. Is that okay?"
Though the nurse is older than herself, Kate feels for the young woman. She probably still believes in fairytales and got into this job so she can spend her days with cute babies, not even thinking about any tragedies that could come into her job. Kate almost envies her for not being as jaded as she is. She nods her head and in a hoarse voice says, "Yeah."
At her response, the nurse smiles, pushes the bassinet closer to the bed and quickly leaves. Kate immediately worries she made a mistake in letting her continue down her life of fiction.
Kate sits up a little straighter. She has no idea what the baby looks like, but she knows that if she brings the bassinet the foot left of space in between them, she will want to hold her, and then keep her and that is not the plan.
So she lightly pushes the baby to the foot of the hospital bed. Only for a second, looking at the little girl in the bassinet. She's sleeping, just as the nurse promised, she has a little tufted of blonde hair that makes, Kate smile, but when she catches herself doing so, it melts away. She lightly strokes the baby's cheek, then pulls away, lying back down and facing away from the baby.
…Or not…
Eleven Years Later
Castle clears his throat to get Beckett's attention. She turns around and smiles ever so slightly, "Well, I guess this is it."
"Well it doesn't have to be. We could, um, go to dinner, debrief each other."
Her smile grows, "Why, Castle? So I can be another one of your conquests?"
"Or I could be one of yours," he offers coyly.
She offers her hand, "It was nice to meet you, Castle, even if you do act like a nine year old."
He shakes her hand, "It's too bad. It would've been great."
Still holding his hand she takes a step closer and whispers in his ear, "You have no idea."
She purses her lips with a hint of a smile and, letting go of his hand, turns around and walks away.
…
Alexis turns off the TV and twists around to look behind her. The light of Castle's office is still on which surprises her. He's been typing ever since he got home five hours ago. She quietly gets off the couch and peaks out from behind the bookcase and into his office. He is sitting in his desk chair, but his feet are on top of the corner of the desk, so his laptop is on his lap. Alexis walks over and pick up a book off of the small stack next to him. "Flowers for Your Grave…" Alexis reads.
He looks up at her, as she reads the next book in the stack, "Death of a Prom Queen." She scrunches her nose when she reads the last title, "Hell Hath No Fury."
"For research," he says.
She smiles and squints, "Of your own books?"
He rolls his eyes a bit at her, "Yeah, I'm just trying to figure something out."
"Did you guys finish the case?"
"I- we did. It's something about Detective Beckett."
"What about her?" Alexis asks as she pulls herself up to sit on the side of the desk.
"There's something else about her that… I can't figure it out."
"What kind of something?"
"I feel like it's obvious and I'm missing it. It's in the way she talks and I can't put my finger on it. It's like she's challenging me."
"Well… maybe I can help."
"I'm sure it's just writer's block," He says trying to reassure his daughter that the 'something' isn't bothering him that much, even though it is.
Alexis shrugs, "Well if you need any help, I'm always around to bounce thoughts off of."
She turns to walk out of his office, but she stops in her tracks when she hears him speak, "She called me a nine year old."
Alexis turns around with a smirk, "You can be a little childish sometimes. But no, no you're right you're not like a nine year old. No, I'm thinking more like a two year old."
Castle gives her a pout that turns into a smirk, "Oh, thank you."
"No problem," Alexis says, painfully sweet, before turning to leave again.
"Why a two year old?"
She turns around for the second time, this time rolling her eyes a bit. He can tell that she was more than willing to entertain him, but she was beginning to wear thin, "It's a figure of speech." Her voice quirks, a little curious now, "I don't know… probably terrible twos and all."
"You were more of a terrible three year old."
Alexis squints at him, "Oh, the flattery."
…
Beckett quickly pulls her hair into a ponytail, before knocking on the door jamb, "You wanted to see me, sir."
"Yeah, can you stay a little longer?"
"Lanie'll be back soon," Beckett says, hesitantly.
"It will only take a second," Montgomery reassures her. She attentively stands in front of him. "I just got a phone call from the mayor's office. Apparently, you have a fan."
She almost laughs, "A fan, sir?"
"Rick Castle," She looks away out of disdain, "Seems he's found the main character, for his next set of novels, a tough but saavy female detective."
She straightens, when she registers the information, "I'm flattered?"
"Don't be. He says he has to do research."
"Oh, no," She snaps.
"Oh, yes," Montgomery reassures.
"No way," she reassures right back.
"Beckett, listen-"
She cuts him off, "Sir, he is like nine year old on a sugar rush, totally incapable of taking anything seriously."
"But he did help solve this case."
"Oh," she huffs discrediting him completely.
"And when the mayor's happy, the commissioners happy, and when the commissioners happy, I'm happy."
She almost rolls her eyes in defeat, "How long, sir?"
He smiles and looks behind her at his office's entrance, "Well that's up to him."
She turns around following Montgomery's gaze. Castle smiling in the doorway pisses her off, the way someone trying to cheer you up after a fight can be more irritating than helpful. She bites her bottom lip making a bit of a snarl and quickly pushes past him back into the bullpen. She can sense Castle following her, but tries to keep her temper in line and just make it out the door without acknowledging him. She goes to grab her jacket, but Castle cuts in front of her making her stop just in front of her desk. "So, I guess we'll be working together," he says pleased of himself.
She tips her head to the side and asks, "Couldn't you just have gone home, wrote your stupid book, and left me alone?"
"I figured out the rest of your story," Castle says still with a silly smirk on his face.
Beckett squints, a little skeptical of him, but curiosity gets the better of her, "Okay… shoot."
"It's something you said. You called me a nine year old, yesterday." Beckett opens her mouth to say something but he keeps talking, not letting her get a word in, "then again just now."
"Seems fair to me," Beckett says, satisfied with herself.
"Yes, but most people say two year old, not me, I always go for three because my daughter, was horrible at that age."
"Are you telling me, you actually act younger than a nine year old?" She asks glancing over her shoulder, at the elevator, for a brief second.
Castle continues, ignoring Beckett's comment, "I think you use nine year old for the same reason that I use three year old-"
"You have a revelation behind all of this?" She asks as she glances over her shoulder again, this time spotting what she keeps checking for, so when she looks back to Castle she has a cunning smile on.
"I think you have a kid."
Beckett bites her bottom lip, "Let me get this straight, you won't let me leave because you wanted me to know how you used your 'amazing' detective skills to tell me something I already know." She pulls a sarcastic smile and stands next to him so she is facing the same way as him. His view was blocked by her a second ago, but now he can see the elevator, and more importantly the people standing near it. Lanie, Esposito, and Ryan are on each side of the entrance way and in the middle is an eleven year old girl obviously telling them about her day. Beckett points her arm as straight as she can to the girl down the hall, "Especially when you could have just looked over there."
She goes around him and grabs her jacket off the back of her chair. When she looks up she sees Castle is smiling. She closes her eyes and asks, "What?"
"It's an interesting back story, that's all."
"Oh, no. She is not gonna be a part of your 'research.'"
"Oh come on it's your story," Castle playfully pleads.
"Bye, Beckett," Lanie and Ryan yell at the same time, as Esposito walks over to one of the other officers' desks, watching her and Castle attentively.
"Bye," She says looking at them for only a second, and when she does so she sees the young girl walking towards them, then she turns back to Castle and quietly scolds, "I said no."
The young girl walks over to them and bends over propping her elbows onto the top of the desk, "You almost ready, Mom?" When Beckett is finished pulling on her jacket, she sees the girl extending her hand out to Castle. "Hi, I'm Anna."
"Castle," He greets shaking the girls hand.
"What're you doing here?"
"Castle is doing research on the NYPD, for a book he is writing," Beckett says, not only explaining to her daughter in a controlled environment, but also putting Castle in his place a little. She walks to the other side of her desk and leans on it so she is sitting in the middle of them.
"Oh you're that Castle," Anna says her eyes growing big accompanied by a cunning smile.
Castle reflects her smile, "You know me?"
"Yeah, of course," She points at her mom and continues, "She has al-" Beckett jumps up to stand behind her and covers her mouth, then moves her hand down to wrap it around her chin.
"Well I can see I'm going to have my hands full with the two of you," She says taping the Anna's shoulder, guiding her to turn around. "We should go."
"Yeah, of course," Castle says, smothering his smile.
Beckett turns to walk away from him, but then stops in her tracks. She looks at her daughter practically running in front of her a few feet away, and turns back to Castle, "Castle?"
He looks up from the floor at the sound of his name, "Yup?"
"You don't know the rest of my story," she says, before turning back around.
"Willing to share?" Castle asks, starting to play the game.
"It's not part of your research," She says, over her shoulder, in a way that he has to assume she meant it is quite literally not in his job description and realizes he kind of wishes it was.
He can't help but smile, "Until tomorrow, Detective Beckett."
"Goodbye, Castle," She says not even looking back over her shoulder this time.
"Until tomorrow, Mr. Castle," Anna yells from all the way down the hall.
Hope you enjoyed this rather short chapter. I love reviews whenever possible. I hope to finish the next chapter soon, so I'll see you then…